"Success covers a multitude of blunders." -- George Bernard Shaw --

Pollyanna

Title: Pollyanna

Author: Eleanor H. Porter

Rating: ★★★★☆

Ages: 7 - 14

     Back Cover Synopsis: 

    When orphaned Pollyanna Whittier comes to live with her stern maiden aunt, the entire town of Beldingsville is affected by the bubbly nature of this lively eleven-year-old. Not only is she perpetually cheerful, she also brightens the lives of everyone she meets. 

    How does Pollyanna manage to be so eternally optimistic? How does she spred her bright outlook amont the sick, sad, and abrasive people of the town and transform the life of her lonely aunt? It's the "glad game", she says, describing the antidote to hardship and depressed spirits. But in a serious accident, the town almost loses its "Glad Girl", and everyone looks for a way to make this youngster happy again. 

 

 "If we were meant to stay in one place, we'd have roots instead of feet." -- Rachel Wolchin -- 

Ulysses by Alfred, Lord Tennysson

Ulysses

by Alfred, Lord Tennyon

It little profits that an idle king,

By this still hearth, among these barren crags,

Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole

Unequal laws unto a savage race,

That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink

Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd

Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those

That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when

Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades

Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;

For always roaming with a hungry heart

Much have I seen and known; cities of men

And manners, climates, councils, governments,

Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;

And drunk delight of battle with my peers,

Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.

I am a part of all that I have met;

Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'

Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades

For ever and forever when I move.

How dull it is to pause, to make an end,

To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!

As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life

Were all too little, and of one to me

Little remains: but every hour is saved

From that eternal silence, something more,

A bringer of new things; and vile it were

For some three suns to store and hoard myself,

And this gray spirit yearning in desire

To follow knowledge like a sinking star,

Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

         

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,

To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,—

Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil

This labour, by slow prudence to make mild

A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees

Subdue them to the useful and the good.

Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere

Of common duties, decent not to fail

In offices of tenderness, and pay

Meet adoration to my household gods,

When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

         

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:

There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,

Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me—

That ever with a frolic welcome took

The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed

Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;

Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;

Death closes all: but something ere the end,

Some work of noble note, may yet be done,

Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:

The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep

Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,

'T is not too late to seek a newer world.

Push off, and sitting well in order smite

The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths

Of all the western stars, until I die.

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,

And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

 “Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.” — Lemony Snicket, Horseradish --

 “What then is freedom? The power to live as one wishes.” – Marcus Tullius Cicero

 “To be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.” – Nelson Mandela

 “The secret to happiness is freedom… And the secret to freedom is courage.” – Thucydides

A Wrinkle in Time

 Title: A Wrinkle in Time

Author: Madeleine L'Engle

Rating: ★★★★☆

Ages: 10 - 16

 Back Cover Synopsis: 

    It was a dark and stormy night; Meg Murry, her small brother Charles Wallace, and their mother had come down to the kitchen for a midnight snack when they were upset by the arrival of a most disturbing stranger. 

    "Wild nights are my glory," the unearthly stranger told them. "I just got caught in a downdraft and blown off course. Let me sit down for a moment, and then I'll be on my way. Speaking of way, by the way, there is such thing as a tesseract."

    A tesseract (in case you don't know) is a wrinkle in time. To tell mroe would spoil your enjoyment of Madeleine L'Engle's unusual book.

 “Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of resistance.” – Woodrow Wilson

 “Without freedom, there is no creation.” – Jiddu Krishnamurti

 "Music is the great uniter. An incredible force. Something that people who differ on everything and anything else have in common." -- Sarah Dessen --

 "Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without." -- Confucius -- 

 "Music is an outburst of the soul." -- Frederick Delius --

 "Music . . . will help dissolve your perplexities and purify your character and sensibilities, and in time of care and sorrow, will keep a fountain of joy alive in you." -- Dietrich Bonhoeffer --

Hatchet

Title: Hatchet

Author: Gary Paulsen

Rating: ★★★★★

Ages: 12 - 18+

    Back Cover Synopsis:

    Thirteen-year-old Brian Robeson is on his way to visit his father when the single-engine plane in which he is flying crashes. Suddenly, Brian finds himself alone in the Canadian wilderness with nothing but a tattered Windbreaker and the hatchet his mother gave him as a present - and the dreadful secret that has been tearing him apart since his parents' divorce. But now Brian has no time for anger, self-pity, or despair - it will take all his know-how and determination, and more courage than he knew he possessed, to survive.  

 "Music acts like a magic key, to which the most tightly closed heart opens." -- Maria Augusta von Trapp --

 "That’s the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet.” — Jhumpa Lahiri --

 “It is not true that we have only one life to live; if we can read, we can live as many more lives and as many kinds of lives as we wish.” – S.I. Hayakawa --

 “Reading is a conversation. All books talk. But a good book listens as well.”— Mark Haddon -- 

 “No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting.” — Mary Wortley Montagu --

 “If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking." -- Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood --

The Secret Garden

 

Title: The Secret Garden

Author: Francis Hodgson Burnett

Rating: ★★★★★

Ages: 6 - 14+

   Back Cover Synopsis:

     One of the most beloved children's books of all time and the inspiration for a feature film, a television ministries, and a Broadway musical, The Secret Garden is the best-known work of Frances Hodgson Burnett. In this unforgettable story, three children find healing and friendship in a magical forgotten garden on the haunting Yorkshire moors. 

 “Just because you’re a slow reader doesn’t mean you’re a bad one." -- Joe Walters --

 “Reading well is one of the great pleasures that solitude can afford you.” -- Harold Bloom --

 “The ability to read awoke inside of me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive.” -- Malcolm X --

 “A well-read woman is a dangerous creature." -- Lisa Kleypas --

 “Reading is an active, imaginative act; it takes work." -- Khaled Hosseini --

"I love the solitude of reading. I love the deep dive into someone else's story, the delicious ache of a last page." -- Naomi Shihab Nye --

Animal Farm

Title: Animal Farm

Author: George Orwell

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Ages: 15 - 18+

    Back Cover Synopsis:

    First published in 1945, Animal Farm has become the classic political fable of the twentieth century. Adding his own brand of poignancy and wit, George Orwell tells the story of a revolution among animals of a farm, and how idealism was betrayed by power, corruption and lies. 

 "Never let the fear of striking out get in your way." -- George Herman "Babe" Ruth --